Akshay G
- Research Program Mentor

MS candidate at University of California San Diego (UCSD)

Expertise

Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Computer Science

Bio

My name is Akshay Gopalkrishnan and I am starting my Master's program in Computer Science at UC San Diego. Throughout my college experience, I have developed a passion for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. This propelled me to research at the Laboratory for Safe & Intelligent Automobiles (LISA) at UC San Diego during my college experience. My research focuses on the intersection of applying computer vision & deep learning to autonomous vehicles and safety features in automobiles. Currently, I am working on my thesis project which involves developing vision-language models to perform tasks for end-to-end autonomous driving. In my free time I love to get as much exercise as possible. I go the gym, swim, run, and love playing basketball! I'm also an assistant coach for the UC San Diego Men's club basketball team. My favorite sports teams to watch are the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Lakers. I have also recently started to begin my own vinyl collection and enjoy listening to them in my free time.

Project ideas

Project ideas are meant to help inspire student thinking about their own project. Students are in the driver seat of their research and are free to use any or none of the ideas shared by their mentors.

Vehicle Detection through Deep Learning

For autonomous vehicles, one of the most fundamental tasks is to automatically detect other vehicles, allowing the ego-vehicle to analyze and monitor surrounding traffic to plan its own safe path. The student will learn about state-of-the-art deep learning object detection methods and decide which model fits best for, this task of vehicle detection. Furthermore, the student will research various autonomous vehicle datasets and apply their developed model to their dataset of choice. From this project, students will be introduced to all the modern deep learning and computer vision models used in research today and how each can be applied to various applications. They will also learn how to develop their own machine learning models in Python with libraries such as Pytorch. The potential student outcome of this project would be to write a scientific research paper about their approach to vehicle detection as well as the performance they achieve.

Coding skills

Python, C++, Java, C, Pytorch, Numpy, Pandas, Hugging Face

Teaching experience

This past Winter Quarter, I was a teaching assistant for an upper division engineering course related to developing Intelligence Systems with AI and Computer Vision. I led my own discussion sections where I would teach class curriculum and review upcoming homework assignments. I have also previously tutored for an upper and lower division computer science college course related to Data Structures. I would host my own office hours where I would work with students one-on-one to help them debug their programming assignments.